Conventional user interface (“UI”) integration technologies allow a user to collaborate and interact with one or more computer applications. Examples of conventional UI integration technologies include ActiveX, for use with Microsoft Windows, and Open Services Gateway Initiative (“OSGi”), for use with platforms like the Eclipse application framework. While these conventional UI integration technologies serve their intended purpose of allowing a user to interface with a particular component, they are technology dependent. For example, OSGi is language dependent, being written in Java code. ActiveX, meanwhile, is limited to Microsoft-based platforms. Consequently, because conventional UI integration technologies are not technology neutral, conventional UI integration technologies have limited interoperability and may require substantial redesign before they can be transferred between technologies.
In addition, conventional UI integration technologies have been directed to component integration rather than application integration. As initiatives emerge to integrate disparate systems for increased efficiencies, conventional UI integration technologies are having to be redesigned to allow users to interface with applications from these systems using a common platform. An example of such an initiative is the Smart Grid. The Smart Grid aims to integrate a new set of applications with legacy power grid systems for real time monitoring and control though a common platform. By enabling a common platform to make energy allocation decisions in place of multiple decision-makers at a more local level, the Smart Grid aims to increase efficiencies associated with the utility power grid. These increased efficiencies, however, require a user at the common platform to interact with various applications provided by legacy systems, and thus requires disparate applications to be integrated through the common platform. Conventional UI integration technologies are not adapted for application integration and therefore do not allow interaction by a user at a common platform.
Therefore, a need exists to enable users to interface, in a technologically neutral way, with various applications from disparate technologies using a common platform. More specifically, there is a need for systems and methods for providing a service-oriented user interface integration bus.